you can watch highlights from today's show online. i can't thank you enough for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell picks up with more news right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," debt ceiling talks shifting to the white house this hour. still no signs of a breakthrough with the deadline to default a week away. >> there's a number of places that we are still far apart. it didn't seem like it do be this hard. i think it's common sense, it's reasonable and rational that we spend less. i think we can make progress today. i'm hoping we can make progress. florida governor ron desantis is making it official. announcing his 2024 candidacy tonight on twitter during a discussion with elon musk as his future republican primary rivals blanket iowa and new hampshire to try and pull support from former president trump.

steve kornacki will join me from the big board to break it all down. this afternoon, president biden will honor the 19 children and two teachers who lost their lives one year ago today in the horrific uvalde mass shooting. after a moment of silence this hour coming up, in texas, across the state for the victims, their families and the community. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where speaker mccarthy just outlined his views about the debt ceiling stalemate, which a democratic official is calling, quote, a speed you bump in comments to nbc news, as the talks resume at the white house this hour, shifting from capitol hill. the treasury secretary re-emphasized this morning that there is only one week left, and that doesn't count the time needed to get a bill through both houses of congress. mccarthy said he would give his house 72 hours to read the bill once there's an agreement. the big obstacle, the size and

scope of spending cuts that republicans are demanding. joining us now is nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake, who was there questioning the speaker, jason fuhrman, advisor to president obama and brendan buck, communications director for boehner and ryan. joining us first is garrett haake. the speaker coming out and saying, we can reach an agreement, we don't have to default, putting it on the president and citing a cnn poll, which is one of the two polls that came out today, very different views about that. we will talk about that in a minute. not saying where there could be agreement. he keeps saying, as i heard him -- you questioned him -- no family would -- without money, with a debt this big, would spend more next year than we are spending this year.

he means the '22 budget. that involves a big cut in discretionary money if you are not including social security, medicare and defense. because of inflation. >> reporter: you are right. the speaker has been very consistent to the point of repeating stories that many of us in the press corps could repeat from memory now about his view that the discussion is about cutting spending. spending less money next year than we spent this year. the problem for democrats as you laid out is of all the things that are fenced off, that you can't -- you can't touch medicare or social security or defense spending, if you won't accept a freeze as a cut, if you won't accept other ideas that the white house and democrats have put forward as ways to achieve the same goals in terms of deficit reduction, what you are left with are very draconian cuts to everything else, every kind of other domestic spending

program. the main change in posture today is a physical one. the house negotiators will meet at the white house. beyond that, we are stuck. we are where we were. the white house has described this as a speed bump. my problem is it connotes there has been speed in the negotiations. the two sides have been far apart for some time. the speaker made it clear they are still far apart. i tried to press him on the question of -- he conceded they're going to need a bipartisan deal to get this through. a lot of democrats believe mccarthy, because of the low threshold to call for a vote of his removal, is a hostage of his own far right. he cannot make a deal because the right will not allow it. here is what he said when i pressed him on that. what do you say to those who believe you can't get to yes because so many members of your conference won't accept anything less than the bill you passed? >> they are wrong. you underestimated me the whole time. the one thing you should learn from me, i will never give up

for the american people. those are the people i'm looking at. can we get to yes? yes. >> reporter: the speaker insists he can get to yes, he can get a bill through the house. he says it will give his conference 72 hours to read it. doing the math, there is vanishingly little time left to get to a deal that can be turned into text and actually passed before june 1st. >> jason, first of all, when he is talking about keeping spending at current levels or last year's approved budget, it's not counting for inflation. already, you are dealing with less spending, even if you don't count for the fact that so much is walled off in the budget. the treasury secretary warned that the debt ceiling fight is causing some stress in the financial markets. we paid the price in 2011, despite a last-minute deal. let's watch what janet yellen had to say. >> we are seeing some stress in

financial markets. bills coming due around early to mid june are trading at a significantly higher interest rate. if you go back to 2011, remember that u.s. treasuries were actually downgraded. the stock market fell almost 20%. the united states paid an estimated billion plus in interest payments just during that year. >> jason, "the washington post" is reporting that the treasury department is asking federal agencies about cutting back on their spending, slowing down some of their payments to see how much can be saved to stretch out the june 1st deadline. can you give us a reality check? how much leeway does treasury have, since they seem very far apart on any deal?

>> first of all, as you pointed out, the brinksmanship is doing damage to the economy. they have relatively little leeway. they don't know exactly what date this hits. the closer and closer your cash balance gets, the more you are in risk of the federal government basically bouncing a check. this isn't like joe the plumber who is rearranging their payments to make sure they have enough in their checking account. the federal government just needs to treat their finances in a very different way. the idea that they have painless magical ways to get around this that i hear from both sides is just wrong. >> american diplomats saying that other countries are talking about the u.s. and not understanding our political process, that it's not the kind of legislative process that they can understand from the world's greatest democracy and the world's greatest economic power. how tough is it to cut a deal that can pass in this narrow a

house that can get through the senate and which will take a certain amount of time, at least 72 hours the speaker said, so that people can read the bill? then you have to go through the rules committee. that will be fast if it's something he agreed to. how many days is that? >> i think all that second phase stuff is the much more important stuff. the question that garrett asked i think is really key. i don't think this is that complicated of a deal to get. we're not talking about that many different items. i do think there's a little more time for some of this posturing before they absolutely have to get something. that's probably why there is posturing taking place, because they have another day or two to get there. what kevin mccarthy was talking about -- i appreciate everything about what you said about money being walled off and inflation. i think kevin mccarthy is just talking about discretionary spending, the operating budgets of government agencies. he is saying, we need to spend less this year than last year.

that's a huge departure from the 130, $140 billion the house talked about cutting in that budget. i'm a little nervous when he comes back to his conference with a deal that meets that test, it -- maybe it spends less, if he can get that, but we are talking about 5, 10, $15 billion. that's a huge difference from 140 that the house said is their position. i wonder how house members are going to react to that. we know democrats are getting angsty, feeling like they are giving something. i'm nervous about the ability to pass a deal once they get it. a deal is not that hard to get, but passing it is the roller coaster. >> i'm interested, when he says that they have made a concession by agreeing to even lift the debt ceiling, maybe he is not seeing that, but bob good and several others in the freedom caucus are saying that. >> i appreciate him being direct and honest about that. that's what's going on here.

debt limits are the hardest thing we ever pass in the house for republicans. i joke that once we pass a debt limit increase, the speaker gets five minutes to relax before you start thinking about how you are going to handle the next one. it's a difficult thing. you always need to find some way to work around it, attaching it to something else. it's hard for him to say, here is this deal i got, it cuts -- i don't know exactly the number, but it cuts tens of billions of dollars, permitting reform, working around the edges on work requirements. that's about as ambitious as we are looking here. that's a big departure from house republicans are saying mccarthy should hold out for. >> you have a point you want to make, jason? >> yeah. i agree with everything he said. but here is the thing. it won't just be blank is cut from spending. there will be money added to

defense, which means a bigger cut to non-defense. maybe the republicans will be disappointed with the top line spending cuts, but then what will the democrats think when a bunch of the non-defense cuts are happening not really to cut the debt but in order to fund extra defense? there's a lot of difficulties on all sides here. that's why i think there's only so much the speaker can reasonably ask for. of course, there needs to be some form of compromise here. let's not pretend this is about the debt when you raise defense spending, when you started out saying he wanted to reduce tax enforcement, things like work requirements have little bunl budgetary impact. he should not pretend this is about the debt. >> that's a good reminder. the war supplemental passed this year only takes us to september. there's going to be a huge extra appropriation for ukraine coming

up in september. garrett, jason, brendan, thanks so much for setting the stage. joining us now is democratic congressman steny hoyer of maryland, the majority leader and whip as well. it's good to see you. >> good to be with you. >> we have known each other i figured this morning more than 40 years. both of us were on the local side. >> i will say more than that. >> you were in the state senate from prince george's county. i've known you to be a straight shooter. what's the deal here? how do you get around both sides of your caucus? how does he retain his speakership? how do you make this work? >> first of all, let me say, i think the speaker will remain the speaker. one of john boehner's people on previous to me, frankly, what

did john boehner do? we knew we had to do certain things. his members wouldn't support it. he came across the aisle. he got some of his people, a lot of our people and we passed it. mostly about fiscal issues, but some others as well. this is a phony issue. the speaker talks about the fact that defaulting is not an option. that's what he said in his wall street speech. we agree, default is not an option. there's not a difference between the two parties. there's no concession to one or the other. we both believe the same thing. to do that we ought to raise the debt limit. he talks about spending less. where do you spend money? you spend it in the appropriations process. that's where you spend it. not on the debt limit. that's where you decide how much you are going to spend. he says, cut from last year's spending. they control the house of representatives. pass an appropriation bill that spends less than we spent last year. we will see if he can do that. he couldn't do it this week. there were four bills scheduled

to be passed. they had to jettison them. they didn't have the votes. when he says we raise the dote limit, he did in a bill that was a pretend bill. a bill that said we're going to do something when they don't have the ability in their own caucus to do it. first of all, let's stop this phony crisis. let's stop this tanking the confidence of the american economy and indeed the global economy by having this phony fight. let's do the debt limit. i believe that there are votes on the floor of the house of representatives if the speaker, who he says he won't do it, will bring a clean debt limit to the floor. if he doesn't do that, let's make a deal. we understand that that's the process of democracy. but let's make one that's reasonable and let's make one that he can pass bills on. have him pass appropriation bills. that's what the president is talking about. the president showed him a real

budget that if we had the majority i think we could pass. he can't pass his budget that he passed because it was a pretense. it's sad that we continually have this drama on a phony issue and pretend to the american people. if you are going to represent the american people, we need to tell them the truth. the debt limit is not where you really deal with additional debt. it just deals with paying your bills. that's all it deals with. additional debt occurs in the appropriations process. they are in charge of the house of representatives. pass appropriation bills that carry out their budget. i don't think they can do it, frankly. they are draconian. they cut education. they cut veterans' benefits. they cut health care. they cut things that people absolutely need to have. they know they need to have them. when the rubber touches the road, people are going to find out, no, no, no, we don't want that. nor do they want their economy

to be tanked by a phony issue undermining the confidence of america, of our economy and world investors. >> let me ask you about some of the break class options. what about the discharge petition? do you have the votes from problem solvers and others to get some republicans to help you get that going? >> i don't know the answer to that. i hope so. i think we're going to have in excess of 211 or 12 people sign the discharge petition, which means we only need five or six republicans to act responsibly. only five or six to act responsibly so that we do not put the economy at risk by tanking the debt limit extension. i think we can get there. that's one option. >> congressman steny hoyer, thanks very much. appreciate seeing you. >> thank you very much. by the numbers. ron desantis is making it official. how is the primary field shaping

up? steve kornacki knows it all. he is live at the big board and joins us next. that's when "andrea mitchell reports" is back in 60 seconds. stay with us on msnbc. n 60 secos stay with us on msnbc. at t-mobile, your business will save over $1000 bucks. what are you going to do with it? i could use a new sign. with t-mobile for business, save more than $1000 bucks versus verizon. and get the new samsung galaxy s23 plus free with no trade-in required. free with no when our daughter and her kids moved in with us... our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone.

[daughter] slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. we are hours away from one of the most anticipated entries into the 2024 republican primary race, ron desantis, florida's two-term governor and the subject of scrutiny from gop frontrunner donald trump. he will kick off his campaign in a rather unconventional way. he is announcing tonight in an audio only twitter form featuring elon musk. the governor's wife giving us a preview with a 30-second video. >> they call it fake because in the face of darkness you can see that brighter future. a faith that our best days lay ahead of us. is it worth the fight? do i have the courage? is it worth the sacrifice?

america has been worth it, every single time. >> joining us now, gabe gutierrez, tim miller and the 19th senator at large erin haze. gabe, explain why audio only, on twitter, with controversial but widely followed person, elon musk. >> hi there. as you said, highly unusual. doing this allows governor desantis to do several things. one, he has railing against traditional media over and over and over again throughout his time as governor. this allows him to get away from that. it allows him to tap into the 140 million twitter followers that musk has. twitter recently has been seen as increasingly conservative. it allows him to get his message out without the mainstream media directly to gop primary voters.

that's how his team sees it. as you said, audio only. it denies him the ability to have dramatic announcement pictures, which we try -- his team tried to get into that video that was posted overnight. there's also the unpredictability factor here. elon musk, known as you said to be controversial and unpredictable. who knows how tonight will go? his team, one source telling my colleague dasha burns, they had been in touch with elon musk's team for weeks trying to plan this out, for his part former president trump this morning is blasting governor desantis, saying -- bringing up the story that he tells and bringing up that in 2018, desantis begged him for an endorsement. now he is referring to him as disloyal. this morning i was speaking with the trump advisor who said this twitter announcement was out of

touch and didn't seem to put governor desantis in the right place to be interacting with regular people. that's this highly unusual nature of this. a presidential announcement at 6:00 p.m. tonight on twitter space, audio only. unusual, but desantis' team hopes it will pay off. >> tim miller, the former president, donald trump, who is dominating the field, is picking him apart today. you were back there with jeb bush when donald trump went after him in the early primaries to good affect to him. what can desantis do differently than jeb bush to avoid the same outcome? >> desantis is experienced, even though he isn't an official candidate. i look at his numbers. they have gone down substantially. he is losing by 36% to donald trump.

that's rather unprecedented that you would have somebody with that large of a lead at this point. he has to make that up. one advantage he has that we didn't have in 2016 is he has a few issues with which the republican base is really aligned with him. covid in particular and this fight about wokeness. regardless of whether -- to me, that seems crazy, those two issues would be the sticky ones, but they are. he needs to go at donald trump on that, demonstrate he won in florida while pushing these culture war issues that really resonate with the republican base and create a contrast with trump in a way nobody in 2016 was capable of doing. he has that -- those issues to start with, which i think puts him in a better place than jeb or marco or ted cruz. can he execute that? can he take the fight to trump? there's a lot of good reason to have skepticism based on his performance to date. >> can he do it without retail

politics? there's a place for retail politics in iowa and new hampshire, as he will discover. on policy, the last few months as tim just referred to, he aligned himself culturally on a lot of policies with the base, the hard base, the maga base, if you will, ramping up the fight with disney, passing the six week abortion law, outlawing gender affirming surgery among other laws and the cultural issues with the black community that has really outraged the naacp to put out a travel warning against going to florida. how does this help him in the primary but potentially hurt him in a general election? >> andrea, those are the stakes. we know that the culture wars are a playbook that republicans use, because they know it is effective with some number of their primary voters to galvanize them. then when you do go to a general election, these are the issues

that galvanize democrats to turn out, to reject a lot of these types of policies. you have seen governor desantis really as governor and now emerging as of tonight an official presidential candidate as the face of the erosion of those freedoms, whether we talk about voting rights, critical race theory, book bans, lgbtq+ rights and access to reproductive health care. these are issues that we saw in the 2022 midterms as galvanizing for democratic voters. going into a general, i think that the culture wars you will see galvanizing both sides. that's what a lot of this election will come down to with a candidate that we have seen use this not only as rhetoric but translate a lot of this into policy in florida and maybe as a blueprint for what he would do as president if elected.

>> tim, i want to bring to your attention nikki haley. she's been so cautious about criticizing donald trump. she's been going to the primary states, the republican primary states. she's got a new ad up now, 30 seconds. let's watch. >> make america great again! >> make america great again. >> instead calling the russia invasion a territorial dispute. some republicans on the hill with tough words for desantis. >> do you want ukraine to win this war? >> i don't think in terms of winning and losing. anybody here would do it. judges are a priority. >> honestly, we have businesses that have been locked down and lives destroyed. ♪♪ >> a choice not an echo. tim, you and i have heard that before.

>> yeah. >> this sints interesting afterm scott jumped into the race. >> i find that to be a compelling ad for reaching me as a never trump republican. i don't know how well that's going to work with republican primary voters who like donald trump. the core voter, the swing voter, if you will, in the republican primary is someone that likes donald trump, isn't sure if he is the right person to stick with. move on to someone else that's more electable. that ad seemed to be reaching more of the extreme minority within the republican party who really don't like trump and are actively ready to move on. can nikki haley carry that message with affect? i don't know. even though i agree with it on the merits. i think the other interesting thing is that she's going at desantis. we need to monitor, do nikki haley and tim scott make the

same mistakes that others made in 2016, which is attack each other rather than the frontrunner donald trump? >> tim miller, an important insight as well. thank you. erin, of course, thanks to you. great way to start us open. the first republican primary voting is only seven months from now. as ron desantis enters the field, donald trump is still dominating. let's head to steve kornacki at the big board. he has a huge lead. there's a big distance between desantis and the rest of the pack running or thinking of running. >> yeah. i think that's why this is such an interesting moment. we talk about the last few months for ron desantis before he entered the race. he has taken some hits. he has had donald trump attacking him. i think that's brought his poll numbers down a little bit. you see the field that desantis is jumping into. seven republicans with desantis coming in later today saying they are running.

then there's a question of how big is this field going to get? think of at least seven more who are either poised to enter or who are toying with entering the race. you are getting into the territory, that double digit candidate territory you saw in 2016 which raises questions about something as simple as debate stage dynamics, who gets on the stage, who doesn't get on stage, the tactics the candidates employ. the question certainly if you are desantis and you would like to consolidate as much as you can the non-trump part of the party, how much of a challenge does this present to you in terms of your ability to consolidate? that's one of the tests out of the gate for desantis. we can show you what the real clear politics average looks like. trump towering above everybody. desantis at a level -- double digits, near 20%. nobody else near 10%. the question and the opportunity for desantis as he gets to hit the reset button here after the

last few rollouts, that 19.5% he is running at, when we look a month or two, is he going to move that south, create more separation from the rest of the field? is he going to make this look more like a true one-on-one race that raises questions about a lot of the other candidates and whether they should be continuing? that's what he would like to do. the other possibility, of course, is his campaign going backwards. are these numbers not going to rise? are they going to fall? are you going to see other candidates move up and create a muddle behind donald trump? that raises all those parallels of 2016. the opportunity for desantis with this launch now with the new attention he is going to get, can he move up and can he really make this look like a trump/desantis race with everybody else? think back to how trump pulled it off in 2016. this is all going to start. four standalone primaries and

caucuses on the republican side before you get into the mega-state primaries. this is how it was in 2016. we don't know what the exact order will be in 2024. it's worth remembering, 2016 started with a trump loss. trump lost the iowa caucuses in 2016. there was -- a week between iowa and new hampshire when you weren't sure quite what was going to happen. marco rubio was starting to move up. that's when chris christie humiliated him on the debate stage. trump was able to bounce back with a solid win in new hampshire. trump never had two consecutive big losing nights. he lost iowa. he bounced back. if you are desantis, you would like to get separation from the rest of the field. then you would like to in these first four, whatever the order come next winter, you would like to do what nobody was able to do in 2016. you would like to beat him twice in a row and see if that changes

the dynamics that have prevailed in the republican party for eight years now. >> quick question. does the fact that others like glenn youngkin might be considering getting in, indicate they think desantis is a weak alternative to donald trump? >> i think the numbers that you have been seeing recently of people expressing interest suggest the last few months have not gone well for desantis. that's why i think this is such a key moment for him launching this campaign. the fresh look he is going to get, the fresh exposure he is going to get. do we see him move up in the polls and do we see folks like youngkin say, you know what, on second thought desantis is the one with the shot, or does he not fire? then you run into that situation like '16 where you got a crowded non-trump lane. >> steve kornacki, great to see you. you don't just know horse racing. you know the horse race. >> you got it. >> those of us who follow that. thank you very much. follow the money.

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we have breaking news from the justice department. a new 22 count federal indictment, including wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering charges against convicted murderer alec murdaugh. this covers what prosecutors are

calling multiple schemes to obtain large sums of money from his former law clients. >> yes. this indictment talks about variations on a similar theme with a variety of schemes. essentially, he was stealing money from his clients and insurance companies to the tune of millions of dollars. i think some might say, why pile on a man who has been convicted for murder and serving a life sentence in prison? i think the answer is restitution. extracting that ill gotten gain and restoring it to his victims. >> does this involve the insurance money involving the housekeeper's death? >> it does. that's one of the schemes alleged, that he made fraudulent claims to the insurance company so he could claim coverage for her death. so this case will also extract the profits, if the charges can be proven. >> is that still an open investigation, the murder investigation? >> it is. it's a really interesting case. the housekeeper died from a

mysterious fall in his home. certainly, he has not been charged with anything relating to her death. i think in light of the suspicious circumstances of the deaths of his wife and son, that ultimately resulted in his conviction for their murders, i would imagine that investigators will want to probe the facts of her death as well in a new light. >> barbara mcquade, it's fascinating. thank you very much. one year later, texas and the nation pausing today to remember the 19 lives lost at robb elementary school. we will be live in uvalde next. this is "andrea mitchell reports." that's next only on msnbc. still fresh. still fresh! get 6 times longer-lasting freshness, plus odor protection with downy unstopables. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. with the money we saved, we tried electric unicycles.

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narrator: it's called, “shared leadership.” driven by each community in a groundbreaking setting: california's community schools. where parents and families, students and educators, make decisions as one. creating the school and shaping futures - together. based on the needs of their students... ...steeped in local culture. curriculum from cyber security to gardening. and assisting families

with their needs: wellness centers, food pantries, and parental education. california's community schools: reimagining public education. today is a grim anniversary for a small community in texas mourning the loss of 19 children and two teachers in that horrific mass shooting. it has been a full year since the elementary school shooting in uvalde where police stayed back instead of running toward the shooter as they had been trained to do, compounding the anger, the frustration, the sorrow of parents and others. uvalde is part of a moment of silence that took place moments ago in honor of the victims and survivors. president biden is going to mark the anniversary today by calling for congressional action to address gun violence. there's been none in texas. guad venegas is in uvalde.

>> reporter: the parents today, many of them speaking saying that there is some frustration because of a lack of transparency, they say, and a lack of answers from the investigation that still has not concluded into what happened. also, accountability from law enforcement, and as you mentioned the way they responded. today, marking one year since this tragic event took place, much of the focus is placed on the healing. for the parents who lost children on that terrible day one year ago, sometimes it feels like yesterday. other times, like an eternity. >> we don't ever want them to forget our kids. >> they had the world in front of them. >> reporter: tom llamas sat down with three grieving mothers. this woman lost her 10-year-old tess. kimberly's daughter was just 10. gloria lost her daughter and her

niece. they have been calling for stricter gun laws and are angry that no measures have been taken. >> guns are idolized. that's more important than children, our children. >> reporter: you think guns are more important than children in this country? >> yes. >> reporter: when did you come to that realization? >> the day my daughter died. >> reporter: the community still searching for answers about that day, when it took police 77 minutes to enter the school and stop the shooter. the school district police chief was voted out unanimously last summer. his lawyers have said he is not at fault. there are local and national investigations into the delayed response. a state report last year found that the shooter left a number of red flags online but was still able to purchase $5,000 of guns and ammunition. >> look internally. hold up the mirror now. >> reporter: parents demanding

the district take threats seriously in the future. >> we are still stuck on may 24th. i think it's time we start doing something better. >> reporter: today educators say they have no choice but to move forward. >> we have done a lot in a short amount of time. there's still a lot of parents who don't feel safe. >> reporter: a community looking for a fresh start with a new campus set to replace robb elementary. construction scheduled to begin this summer, including a massive tree memorial for the victims, being remembered today one year later. that school, of course, will be a fresh start for many, especially here at robb elementary, a school that served children underprivileged, children from the lower income part of uvalde will have that new school. today is an emotional day marking one year. you can see the memorial in the town square where there are photos and articles remembering the victims that died.

the town now has murals remembering some of the victims. there was a ceremony at a local church earlier today at 11:30 local time. butterflies were released. they rang bells. later, there's a candlelight vigil scheduled by the families, that will take place this evening, open to the public with some restrictions with the media in town, observing -- keeping distance so that everyone can focus on the healing today, one year after that shooting at robb elementary. >> guad, i heard you say earlier today that the school -- that robb elementary still stands. they haven't taken it down. why not? where are the children if the new one isn't started? >> reporter: some of the children have returned to school. they made arrangements at the district for them to go to other schools, others have chosen to be home schooled. recovering from the tragedy. that school, the mayor informed that it has not been torn down

because of paperwork, something, a legal issue. it will be torn down hopefully this summer to make way eventually now to focus on the construction of the new campus that we saw. >> they really do need to think about a new beginning, at least symbolically. as though you could ever get over the horror of what happened there, which you can't. guad, thank you very much. a helping hand. how tech experts in ukraine with an assist from the u.s. are giving people crucial government services in the midst of the war. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." that exclusive report coming up next on msnbc. nbc.

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and generally just more on point. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. with nearly 6 million ukrainians displaced inside ukraine, one public service app has become a crucial lifeline. it's called dia, that's ukrainian for action. and thanks to a $25 million u.s. investment, nearly half of ukraine's population is actively now using the app to track russian troops, report damage from russian strikes and secure loans to fix it. the app also houses passports and allows ukrainians to access social aid and more than 100 other crucial services helping lead the effort, former u.n. ambassador samantha power, both join me tuesday with the help of a translator for an exclusive interview after they did a public rollout here in washington. >> thank you both for being

here. so minister, this is just an extraordinary app. you helped design it, create it. the technological advances in ukraine have really stunned the world, and impressed the world. tell us about it. >> first of all, we have a mission to create ukraine as the most -- country in the public services, and we have a big potential because in ukraine now 300,000 i.t. specialists and we have political will to implement new transformation decisions to transform our country and dia is answer how we can build, to build the most convenient country in the world. and we launched 100 services. we became the first country in the world who legalized and launched electronic passport,

and now in washington, we present it as opportunities of our digital country. >> it's just extraordinary. administrator power, ambassador power, so usaid helped fund this, $25 million as sort of a startup, but what ukraine has done, i mean, we first saw it in the days of the invasion, which was basically stopping the cyber attacks in their tracks, which everyone had expected russia to have such a great advantage. >> it is really hard to find words to describe the technological sophistication of ukrainians young people. we have a 32-year-old deputy prime minister here beside me, of the tech specialist that mykhalo mentioned. diia was a glean in someone's eye in 2019. and now here we are a massive

full scale invasion later and you have more than 120 services available to citizens, and they've adapted in wartime so skillfully, so now internally displaced people who would have had to wait in line and maybe outside, you know, lining up for blocks to get access to payments, they just do it with one click on the phone. his neighborhood was bombed last night as it happens, and he was showing me photos of a couple of the buildings in his neighborhood that had bomb damage at the top. what will happen later today, if it hasn't already is somebody will go and they will take a photo of the bomb damage, upload it, and very soon they will get an assessment of how much that damage is, and after that, they will with their phone be able to then apply for compensation or for material support to fix the damage. it has just become one stop shop, and it was zelenskyy's vision in 2019 to create the start -- it was zelenskyy's vision in 2019 to create the state in a smartphone or the

state in an app, and miraculously, the war hasn't slowed that progress down. it's accelerated the progress. the other aspect of it, he talked about convenience, which i think citizens' experience about government is so much about is government making my life simpler or more convenient, or is it making it harder, and this app is something that i think the president in ukraine has used to enhance the state's legitimacy, which of course is up anyway because of the invasion. but nonetheless, this is about democracy delivers in the lives of citizens, which is something president biden talks about a lot as well. >> how do you stop the russians from being able to access some of these damage assessments or troop assessments you're able to transmit through the app. >> because cybersecurity is fundamental of our successful history. >> cybersecurity is fundamental

to the success of your whole history because of what you live. >> cybersecurity is the foundation of our product because we support the approach, the product by design, cybersecurity by design. diia doesn't save data. diia is a platform which connects the different registers. >> so the vulnerability -- the vulnerability that you would have if the government was storing all the data, the vulnerability to hackers but also privacy and surveillance concerns, they have addressed as a design feature by creating the platform but not itself -- not the government itself storing the data. but at the same time, he wears

another hat not just creating diia, which so work on cyberprotection across all minist ministries. that is the dog that is not barking in this war. putin has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in trying to take down ukrainian government functionality through cyberattacks, and they have withstood those attacks just like they've withstood conventional weapons attacks. >> what is the future here as you develop these technologies, are the students who are coming up in ukraine conversing with -- they are able to do all of these things? >> yes, of course and now we share our expertise with other countries. for example, estonia will launch their government app on the basis of --

>>es tone wra? estonia. >> the number one e-governance country in the world. >> in two weeks, and it's good proof of our product. >> another expert from ukraine in the middle of a war. >> i was -- you can see on his jacket, you know, the ukrainian flag is ukrainian wheat and the ukrainian sky, and that is symbolic of how much ukraine has shipped to the world. of course as the bread basket, but now it is becoming known for its tech, and the fact that estonia, which is the stuff of legend for its e-governance is turning to ukraine to get access to its code and its software, and usaid is now working with the ukrainian government to look at other developing countries in africa and beyond that could use this kind of digital infrastructure, including the cyber security protection. >> thank you so much, it's such a treat to meet you and to learn all about this, and ambassador power, this is just another way that usaid is expanding its reach throu t